LAPEER (WWJ) A Lapeer man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for his alleged scheme to defraud a Massachusetts construction company of nearly $1 million to buy and renovate a hunting lodge and to engage in other personal spending.
According to a press release by the United State’s Attorney’s Office; Jonathan McCormack, 39, was indicted in Springfield, Massachusetts on 17 counts of wire fraud and 12 counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000.
The indictment said McCormack was working as a project supervisor for BluRoc LLC in Northampton, Mass. He was also the owner and operator of JDM Site Services LLC, a Lapeer, Michigan-based company that rented heavy equipment to BluRoc.
McCormack allegedly devised a scheme to defraud BluRoc, between January 2019 and January 2021, by a variety of methods including: submitting false JDM invoices for purported equipment usage, and by using BluRoc labor, equipment and materials for his own gain.
He’s also accused of entering fraudulent employee time and JDM equipment usage data in BluRoc’s tracking system that exaggerated the number of hours the employees, including himself, were working on BluRoc projects, and the amount of time the JDM equipment was actually used for.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office also said McCormack deposited payments from the fraudulent invoices into a JDM account. He allegedly used the money to buy and renovate a “luxury hunting lodge,” fix up his own home, buy snowmobiles and other recreation vehicles, and repay a loan to his uncle.
He's accused of telling BluRoc workers to clear an area between his luxury lodge and a property next-door owned by his uncle by laying timber mats that McCormack had stolen from a BluRoc worksite; and haying and seeding the area with more stolen materials. He’s also allegedly electronically approved the worker’s time and equipment usage in BlueRoc’s tracking system- so that the company, rather than himself, paid for their work.
The indictment also demands he forfeit $920,716 in cash, the hunting lodge, and six Polaris recreational vehicles.
The charge of wire fraud comes with a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of engaging in ‘monetary transactions in criminally derived property of a value of greater than $10,000’ comes with a sentence up to ten years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.